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PATTERN Cited by 1 source

Fat client direct I/O

Pattern

Eliminate the dataplane proxy; embed the block-storage client in the SDK so data streams directly from storage servers to the application.

Problem

Traditional storage architectures route data through an API server that proxies bytes from the storage layer to the client. This proxy adds: - An extra network hop (latency) - Additional compute load (CPU/power for data copy) - A bottleneck under high-throughput AI workloads

Solution

Build a fat client SDK that: 1. Calls the API server only for metadata resolution (path → storage addresses) 2. Uses an embedded block client to stream data directly from storage servers 3. The API server becomes a metadata-only service; no data transits through it

Result at Meta

The new BLOB-storage architecture returns a ReadPlanResult (a set of (blockId, offset, size) tuples) to the SDK, which then uses its embedded Tectonic BlockClient to stream directly from Tectonic block servers. This adds zero overhead on top of Tectonic and meets the power-footprint budget by eliminating proxy server fleets.

(Source: sources/2026-07-01-meta-ai-storage-blueprint-at-scale)

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